The recent announcement by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services (USCIS) agency that it intends to implement a sharp
increase in fees for its services has engendered an equally sharp
debate. The Administration argues that the hikes are essen­tial
for keeping the agency solvent and improving services. Critics
contend that the increases will put these services out of reach of
those who need them most, many of whom are already poorly served by
the USCIS.[1]

The debate misses the point. While the USCIS is seri­ously
trying to improve customer service by increasing fees, more
fundamental reforms are required to make the agency an efficient
and effective partner in providing the immigration services and
enforcement that the nation needs to remain safe, free, and
prosperous. Three fundamental reforms are needed:

A different funding model for the USCIS,

A comprehensive overhaul of the agency's service support
enterprise, and

Much better integration of USCIS programs with immigration
enforcement and border control efforts.

A Nation of Immigrants

More than any other nation in history, the United States and its
system of equal justice and economic freedom beckon not only to the
downtrodden and the persecuted-all those "yearning to breathe
free"-but also to those who seek opportunity and a better future
for themselves and their posterity. Immigra­tion is an
important part of the U.S. economy and civil society. Through U.S.
immigration law, Amer­icans invite individuals from other
countries to join them as visitors, workers, students, residents,
and/ or fellow citizens. The federal government's job is to
administer these laws by processing visa peti­tions,
naturalization petitions, and asylum and ref­ugee applications
and by performing other immigration-related activities.[2]

Before 9/11, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)
provided these services and con­ducted enforcement. In the wake
of the attacks on New York and Washington, Congress established the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and assigned immigration
enforcement functions to two DHS agencies: Customs and Border
Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).[3] The USCIS was
established as the entity pri­marily responsible for
administering immigration and naturalization adjudication functions
and establishing immigration services policies.

As daunting as the agency's workload is today, demands for
services will only increase in the future. In his most recent State
of the Union address, President George W. Bush again called for a
temporary worker program and noted the need "to resolve the status
of the illegal immigrants who are already in our country without
animosity and without amnesty."[4] None of this can be done with­out
building an agency far more capable than the current USCIS.

Putting Security First

Improving immigration services directly affects national
security. In fact, having a USCIS that provides fast, responsive,
and accurate services is a critical component of any effective
strategy for enhancing border security, particularly on the
U.S.-Mexican bor­der, which accounts for most of those who
enter this country illegally. Better immigration services could
significantly affect south-north migration flows.

The more than 500,000 individuals that it is esti­mated
enter the United States annually between the U.S. ports of entry
strain federal, state, and local enforcement, preventing them from
focusing their resources on the most serious criminal and national
security risks. Indeed, simply increasing security at the border
has not dramatically decreased illegal border crossings.[5]

A strategy to gain operational control of the U.S. southern
border should focus on building up the means to limit illegal
crossings between the land points of entry, to interdict smuggling
by air and sea, to discourage unlawful presence inside the country,
and to provide adequate legal alternatives to support south-north
migration flows.[6] Immigra­tion services can serve this
strategy in two ways.

First, fast and efficient services will act as
incen­tive for those who wish to come here to opt for legal
migration over illegal entry.

Second, an effective immigration service will be better
able to screen for criminal or national security threats that
attempt to infiltrate through America's legal points of entry.

Putting Services Right

The USCIS needs to provide both better services and better
security. The right funding model, orga­nizational processes,
and interagency operations are key to ensuring that the agency can
do both of these jobs well.

Fixing Funding. By law, Congress requires that most USCIS
operations be funded by user fees. While this requirement seems
fair and appropri­ate-those who avail themselves of the
agency's ser­vices should pay for them-in practice, Congress
has created a system that serves neither its custom­ers nor the
nation well.

In the DHS appropriation for fiscal year (FY) 2007, Congress
provided the USCIS with just under $182 million, which represents a
small fraction of its annual budget.[7] The remaining funds will come from fees
charged for the agency's services. On Jan­uary 31, 2007, the
USCIS announced a proposed fee adjustment as part of its plan to
build an immi­gration service for the future. In the
announcement, the USCIS proposed raising the fee on an I-485
(Adjustment of Status to Permanent Resident) from $325 to $905, an
increase of almost 300 percent. The significantly higher fee is
based on eliminating the additional fees ($475) that applicants
must pay as a result of processing delays-delays caused by the
USCIS's inability to process applications in a timely fashion.

Using elimination of the existing add-on fees to make the fee
increase more palatable is somewhat disingenuous. USCIS processing
delays created the original need for the add-on fees. In addition,
some applicants make it through the system with­out having to
pay the additional process delay fees. For those applicants, the
increase would rep­resent an unjustified substantial increase
in their fees. In effect, they would be paying more for the same
service.

Moreover, because of the time delays associated with the regular
application process, the current USCIS fee model creates incentives
for legal immi­grants to pay a premium fee to expedite the
pro­cessing of their applications. The USCIS collected $202
million in premium fees and $64 million in regular fees in FY 2004
and $139 million in pre­mium fees and $69 million in regular
fees in FY 2005.[8] The substantially higher revenue from
pre­mium fees is a disincentive to transforming nor­mal
processing to meet the six-month goal articulated by President Bush
in 2001.[9] If
the USCIS met President Bush's goal, it would lose the revenue from
premium fees because there would be less need to expedite
processing if normal pro­cessing time were shorter.

This loss would directly affect the asylum, refu­gee, and
military naturalization programs, which currently do not charge
fees for services. Because the USCIS does not collect any fees in
these pro­grams, it must subsidize them by charging higher fees
in other programs.[10] It is unclear whether the proposed fee
increase contemplates the loss of the premium fee program funds or
the USCIS is also proposing to raise the premium fee. If the
pro­posed fee increase does not include the cost of los­ing
the premium fee program, then the USCIS will be forced to raise
fees again or maintain an ineffi­cient system that will ensure
a supply of appli­cants willing to pay a premium fee for
expedited processing.

The pay-as-you-go model that Congress has imposed on the USCIS
is not working because not everyone is paying and those that are
paying are not contributing in an equitable manner. Simply raising
fees perpetuates an unfair and inefficient system. Instead,
Congress should:

Establish a national trust fund to cover the programs for
which the USCIS cannot charge a fee (e.g., amnesty applications and
natural­ization of military personnel). It makes no sense
for Congress to require the USCIS to pro­cess applications or
petitions of immigrants without providing the funds to cover the
costs of those activities. More critically, it is
fundamen­tally unfair for Congress to place the burden of those
costs on the backs of other immigrants seeking entry into America,
many of whom can barely afford to pay for their own costs.

Use the fees to support the main purpose for which they are
collected. Rather than being used to fund the majority of USCIS
operations, fees should be used to support services like legal
immigration, naturalization, and assimilation, thereby
strengthening the naturalization process.

Critically examine calls to increase fees. At a time
when the United States is making a con­certed effort to
encourage those who wish to come to this country to use legal
means, sub­stantially raising fees might achieve the
unin­tended consequence of deterring individuals from complying
with U.S. immigration laws.

Improving Processes. Despite five years of effort and
over $500 million, the USCIS still has not man­aged to overcome
outdated practices, inefficiencies, and inadequate technology. The
result is an unprec­edented backlog of applications and
petitions.[11] Similarly, for security purposes, the
USCIS must eliminate such processes as mailing green cards without
receipt verification so that multiple green cards are not used for
fraudulent or criminal activity.

In terms of the backlog, regardless of how the USCIS continues
to reclassify or redefine the problem, a substantial number of
applications and petitions remain that are well beyond the
six-month goal set by President Bush. This must change. Part of the
problem is due to the inherited backlog that has never been
properly addressed. Another aspect of the problem is the USCIS's
fail­ure to modernize effectively beyond such legacy systems as
the Computer Linked Application Information Management System.

In July 2005, Secretary Michael Chertoff identi­fied these
and other problems with USCIS pro­cesses, noting that
"[r]estructuring this process to enhance security and improve
customer service will be an important part of our upcoming
agenda."[12]
Regrettably, while much has been done to secure the border and to
enhance interior enforcement, not enough has been done to transform
the USCIS.[13]

Nor has the USCIS been effective at adapting commercial
off-the-shelf technologies available in the private sector that
could enable the agency to process applications far more
efficiently and effec­tively. At his confirmation hearing in
October 2005, USCIS head Emilio Gonzalez told the Senate
Judi­ciary Committee that the USCIS "wouldn't be able to handle
[a temporary worker program]."[14] Later, Gonzalez criticized the Senate
bill on illegal immi­gration, stating that the USCIS would need
up to one year just to register the existing illegal aliens already
in the United States.[15]

In the FY 2008 DHS budget, the USCIS has proposed spending $139
million to modernize business infrastructure, an increase of $39
million over the FY 2007 level. Although the $39 million increase
is vital to reforming the USCIS into an efficient and effective
office, it should not be funded by fees.[16] Congress should require
the USCIS to:

Fund its FY 2008 initiatives through appropri­ations rather
than the revenue of increased fees, and Congress should appropriate
the necessary funding.

Deliver a comprehensive and realistic plan for upgrading its
services and information technol­ogy and fund the program
through annual appropriations.

Produce a detailed procurement timeline so that this program
does not fall behind due to a still-maturing procurement capability
at the DHS.[17]

Enhancing Interagency Cooperation. To do its job
effectively, the USCIS must integrate its activities with many
federal agencies including ICE, CBP, the Department of State, the
Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the
Department of Labor, and the Social Security Administration (SSA).
Building the capacity to conduct interagency operations well is
essential to providing both better services and security.

Whether receiving digital transmission of employer "no-match"
letters from the SSA to ICE for follow-up investigations or
electronically verifying immigration documents for the SSA when an
immi­grant applies for a Social Security card, the USCIS must
have the legal authority, resources, and work­force to ensure
that federal agencies are working together, not at cross
purposes.[18]
Congress can accelerate this process by eliminating impediments
that keep federal agencies from cooperating by:

Permitting information to flow freely among federal agencies,
such as sharing of Social Secu­rity no-match data.[19]

Time for Action

Fixing America's broken borders will require a comprehensive
solution that includes immigration reforms to enforce U.S. laws and
create greater incentives for legal migration. Neither of those
goals can be achieved without an effective and efficient USCIS. If
the USCIS fails once again to meet the challenge, the laws of
supply and demand will over­take U.S. immigration laws, and
illegal aliens and employers will continue to avoid an overly
burden­some, costly, and time-consuming legal process.

The USCIS of tomorrow must be efficient, fair, and flexible, not
only to meet the challenges of com­prehensive immigration
reform, but also to compete globally for immigration talent that
developed coun­tries will need to stay competitive in a global
econ­omy and to minimize the graying of their workforces. For
that to happen, Congress must act to establish a better model to
pay for immigration services, to fund the transformation of the
USCIS capabilities, and to enable the USCIS to work more
effectively as part of an interagency team. The longer Congress
waits to address these issues, the longer it will take to deliver
the border and immigration secu­rity that America needs and
deserves.

James Jay Carafano,
Ph.D., is Assistant Director of the Kathryn and Shelby
Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies and Senior
Research Fellow for National Security and Homeland Security in the
Dou­glas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at
The Heritage Foundation. Matt A. Mayer, CEO of Provisum Strategies
LLC, is former Counselor to the Deputy Secretary of the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security and former head of the DHS Office
of Grants and Training.